


Feels Like Home

by iluvaqt



Series: DC & Marvel: Nightingale [17]
Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies), Smallville, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alien Invasion, F/M, Gen, White House
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:23:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6392182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iluvaqt/pseuds/iluvaqt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alien dictator wants to take over the world, must be a Thursday. </p><p>They're back on Earth, and it's like they never left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feels Like Home

 

The guard aimed a device at her person that scanned her with a blue beam from head to toe, Chloe didn't move a muscle. He then caught her wrist and frowned.

"Tendinitis," she explained. "Hazards of not accepting the digital age and hand writing my own reports." The man gave her a narrow and disgusted glare, throwing her arm loose.

Clearing their barricade, Chloe adjusted her spectacles on her face and hefted her medical bag after two others had finished roughly inspecting its contents. One of Kang's soldiers then escorted her down the long corridor to where the prisoners were being held. When they'd done a full body and facial scan of her person prior to entry, she prayed hard that Maria's team of analysts had been able to do a thorough surgical extraction of all references to Chloe Sullivan that would even hint she was nothing less than the White House's chief medical practitioner.

After the alien calling himself, Kang the Conqueror had breached their orbit, blowing two defensive space stations out of the sky, it had been a mad scramble by SHIELD and other world security organisations to determine the threat level and protect possible targets. He had landed the ship which had impenetrable force field technology over the White House. His soldiers had infiltrated the building within seconds, killing the President's entire security team and several of his staff before taking him hostage.

Their demands were simple; submit or die.

Of course the President refused to bow, ready to sacrifice himself on principle. The people needed to stand for their freedom. Kang hadn't been impressed by that and started torturing other hostages, visitors that had been touring the White House. They'd also brought in the President's family. By then SHIELD had put together a STRIKE team. Steve, Natasha, Wanda (who they had had found in an induced coma for injuries she'd sustained from being attacked by Thanos. He'd beamed her to Sokovia of all places. The one place no one had thought to check before she had, had the random thought based on where they'd found Bucky) Vision, Iron Man and Superman.

No one had anticipated just how powerful this Kang was. His advanced technology had taken over Tony's suit and shut it down. He was effectively entombed in his suit, if Clark hadn't heard his cries for help he would have run out of oxygen in minutes. Vision was cut down by a powerful energy blast from Kang's staff, that left an enormous hole in his chest. Wanda and Steve took on hordes of soldiers back to back while Natasha had tried to sneak hostages out while the fighting had ensued. It didn't take long for Kang to notice what she had done, but not before she had gotten the President's family and several other civilians clear.

The staff that he carried, the same one that he had used on Vision, he turned on Clark. The red beam seemed to sap him of his superhuman strength and other abilities. One blow across the head from an alien soldier behind him and Superman was knocked unconscious.

Outnumbered and outmatched, Steve, Wanda and Natasha were subdued and quickly surrendered to prevent more innocent people from being executed.

Kang televised their defeat and capture, but in light of the brutal display that had been captured on the White House security cameras and broadcast, he was prepared to give the public and the world leaders a few more hours to surrender. Maria managed to negotiate terms, which included medical attention for the prisoners.

As soon as she entered the area where the main hostages were being held, she activated the audio relay in her earrings and the vision capture from her glasses.

They'd realized from the broadcast and the readings that Tony's suit had picked up and transmitted to HQ, that Kang wore a battle suit that was self-sustaining but purely defensive. His main weapons were the staff and his chair. He had direct control of the ship from the chair. They had to separate him from the chair and also find a way to disable his armor.

One of his advanced guards shadowed her every movement. She had to keep her head down and do her job. After making sure she had stabilized the wounded, she counted twenty-two dead, fifteen wounded, not accounting for the many cut down outside on the main lawn and on the roof of the building. A quick head count of the escapees and running through the memorized list of the staff on duty and the visitors log meant that along with the President and their team, two were still unaccounted for. She hoped that the Secretary of Education was just hiding out somewhere and that Jeff, one of the school teachers who'd been on a tour, wouldn't try anything dramatic and jeopardize their mission.

"I need to see the other prisoners," she said, standing after she finished taping gaze over one man's slashed face.

The guards nodded to each other and one snatched up her bag, while the other prodded her with the blunt end of his spear.

With her hands up, she entered the room. Her eyes swept through the Oval Office taking stock. Tony's face plate was gone, but he was still out of commission, his suit completely non-functional. Steve, Wanda and Natasha were in alien looking cuffs that complete encased their hands. Each had a guard standing over them with heavy weapons at the ready. Clark had three weapons trained at his head and he wore a blue collar around his neck.

She knew her primary objective. Not for the first time she wished she was back on Asgard. Life was quieter there. Her choices simple. No one's life hung in the balance, their safety in her hands. Well not in the same way, she reasoned. Chloe winced internally. Who was she kidding, for as long as she could remember she attracted dangerous individuals and found herself either threatened with death or those around her. A peaceful existence wouldn't be something she'd have in this life, where ever she was. Better to accept it.

She was grateful that Steve didn't blow her cover. Surprisingly, it had been Wanda who had nearly given her away. Her eyes widening, a soft gasp on her lips. She covered it quickly ducking her head and doubling over, pretending to be in pain. Chloe suspected her reaction had probably more to do with reading their wild play from her mind rather than recognition.

Discreetly, Chloe brushed her wrists together over her head. She felt more than saw her miniaturized stowaways make their move. One push of a button on her seemingly innocuous wrist brace and she activated the special magnetic field that reacted only with the vibranium of Steve's shield. It wrenched from the soldier holding it and anchored to her forearm.

She planted her shoulder snug against the precious metal and drove the shield with all the force she could muster into the guard escorting her, the STRIKE team didn't waste her distraction and took on their captors. Chloe eyed her target and ran at her. She barreled into the woman wearing armor similar to Kang.

As she suspected, he immediately deactivated his throne shield to catch the woman she had attacked.

In that same instance Chloe threw a dagger that the chair. Ant-Man let go of the blade before it impacted a circuit and got to work exposing the circuits of the alien control chair.

Wasp flew who had flown out of the lead lined pocket in Chloe's medical bag earlier, was now in position to infiltrate Kang's suit.

She threw the shield in Steve's direction and hearing it's familiar zing and the vibrations in the air, he jumped and allowed it to impact the cuffs around his hands. It shattered them like glass. He then made short work of knocking out everyone in his vicinity.

As soon as they'd removed Kang from his chair she looked at the ceiling. "Now would be perfect to make good on that alliance. Some help would be nice."

The Bifrost opened on the White House lawn. Bucky in Asgardian garb crashed through a plate glass window and knocked out one soldier. He then took the bloodied Clark by the neck. He caught the collar in his metal fist and crushed it like plaster. He then lobbed Clark like a weighted ball and chain out of the same window. Chloe was slack jawed at his heavy handed tactics but not two seconds later when Clark super-sped and restrained all the invaders with their own metal spears, she couldn't argue that his method had merit.

With the force field disabled by Ant-Man, Thor took care of the ship with his lightening and Ant-Man took care of any possibility of it firing weapons by setting the control chair on fire.

Wasp had disabled Kang's suit while Wanda had knocked his woman out of the fight with one of her mind-scsape attacks.

Jeff, the teacher, had been hiding out in the old forgotten passages of the White House and had made his surprise return when the fighting broke out again. He'd helped block any additional enemy soldier from entering the room by barricading the door from the inside. Chloe was grateful the man turned out to be cool under pressure and quick thinking.

The situation under control, Chloe ran over to Steve who was protecting the President with his body and his shield after intercepting a blast intended to kill him.

Steve had been hit, he was sweating and only just clinging to consciousness. Chloe put pressure on his wound and she could barely see straight she was unwittingly crying so hard.

"Don't," he said grabbing her wrist tightly when he felt her hand press against his wound.

She shook her head cursing his stubbornness. He didn't want her to heal him. "Steve, your tachycardic, and you're adrenaline is too high... Okay if you won't let me, we'll do this the regular way, I just want you to focus. Breathe with me and just stay with me."

While he only ever wanted her not to take his wounds on herself, he had no qualms about her playing with his psyche. Chloe wished it was the reverse. She didn't want to force him to feel anything. She never wanted to manipulate him. What happened with Lorelei made her sick every time she thought about it. She'd had lost control and it had nearly gotten him killed. But if he wouldn't let her take his wound then she would do everything she could to stabilize him long enough to treat him properly.

Steve never took his gaze from hers and he put his fingerless-gloved hand to her cheek. With careful fingers he pulled away her glasses, understanding that they'd served their purpose of providing a live-feed of everything she saw once she had activated them. He nodded his approval when he could see her overly bright green eyes without the fog of the lenses obscuring them. "I thought you were done with all this?"

"Silly man," she sniffed. "Where you go, I go. Your mission is my mission. We're not done, soldier. You're not done. So this is what it is."

She noted and sensed his breathing slow and even out. She squeezed his shoulder fondly and went to work. She took her scissors from her pack and cut away the damaged part of his uniform.

With Kang restrained, SHIELD teams and more Secret Service agents swarmed the Office via Bucky's entrance and from the door when Jeff and Natasha had pulled the furniture blockade away.

Chloe inspected the wound. The pulse weapon had burned and melted through the heat and bullet resistant fabric. It had even penetrated the ceramic polymer plating sewn beneath it. The skin was blistered and blackened and the smell of charred flesh almost made her vomit. Her eyes smarted again but she pushed through her discomfort and flushed the wound. Valiantly trying to ignore his hiss of pain. She inspected it thoroughly and found it hadn't penetrated as deep as she first feared. His muscle was exposed but none of his vital organs had been damaged. With proper stitching and wound care, he'd make a good recovery.

She glanced up and spared a thought for her secondary mission objective. He had been in peripherals the whole time and she already knew the answer but she asked anyway,

"Mr. President, are you okay? I don't read any pain but you're in shock. Your family are safe. We are going to be all right."

The man knelt beside them, his new security team flanking them and checking him over. He looked at Chloe and Steve, blinking rapidly. "It's over? Aliens, mutants, super humans, I don't think I'm really cut out for this," he said softly.

Chloe met his eyes and looked at him soberly. "Sir, if I may, it's only when we acknowledge our limits that we better understand the responsibility we've been given. If you think you know everything, you've stopped learning. And when you stop learning that's when you make mistakes. You've got the job, sir. So do it."

::: ::: :::

**Debriefing Room, Hellicarrier**

Chloe sat opposite Maria, with a nod and a quick kiss to her temple Steve followed the others out to clean up. Maria leaned back in her chair and got up.

"Let's take a walk. I need to stretch and we still need to talk about your results," she said pointedly with a look Chloe couldn't interpret without probing Maria's mood deeper with her gift.

Her friend was tired and concerned, but nothing that indicated she had anything really mind blowing to say. "I went over it with Dr. Simmons," Chloe said quietly with a shrug. "Much of it I already knew, the healers on Asgard are very thorough and their instruments are far more advanced than anything I remember us having."

"About that," Maria quipped with a huff. "It's disconcerting. I liked being older than you. Even though I want to believe you'd never lie to me, you have no reason to, it just doesn't make sense."

Chloe arched an eyebrow and smirked a little as she walked beside her much taller friend. "That's what's thrown you? You find that harder to swallow than the Time Stone being sucked out of me, being able to cheat death for a time and knowing future events? How else do you explain my reports, my missions with Agent May?"

Maria let out a long breath. "I don't like the feeling that things have changed. I got used to the belief that I'd always have you around. Now... "

Chloe stopped walking and caught Maria's elbow. "It was always a risk. Maria, everyone one of us knows what we signed up for. This isn't the kind of job that promises a good retirement plan. You can count the number of Agents that have actually hit retirement age, and all of those made it because they left field work behind. Part of me never had any illusions about my future, it was go nuts or stay dead. You know which I'd prefer."

The look on Maria's face was a mix of frustration and pain. "You have a really morbid sense of humor."

"I know," Chloe said lightly. "You love me anyway."

"Age proteins and bone marrow tests confirm that your cells aren't regenerating like they did compared to your old samples. And there's no longer any trace of the unique radiation signature."

"It's been a long time, I didn't think there would be any residue left. Anything to explain why I seem to be menopausal?" she joked with a forced smile. "I couldn't tell Simmons when I last had a period, and I still haven't had one."

Maria twitched a smile. "Could be another reason for that."

Chloe's face dropped and she missed a step when what Maria implied cut through her like a phantom of Nebula's blade. "That's not… I can't."

Maria paled and caught Chloe's arm, leading her into an alcove that showed a view of the late afternoon sky. The blue and the warmth of the sun did nothing to chase away the sudden chill in her blood at the anguish and heartbreak in Chloe's face. "Chloe? I… you don't have to tell me. Not if it's too painful. I'm sorry."

"I can't have children. The arena gave me a lot of scarring. Maybe not being able to get pregnant is a blessing. The probability of miscarriage is almost a certainty," she said bitterly. A sudden biting pain tore into her midsection and she gasped at the intensity of it. She stumbled back into the wall, she couldn't hold herself up.

"Hey, I've got you." Maria caught her under her arm, and braced her back. "You sure you weren't hit? I know busy with Steve and the others you refused medical."

Chloe shook her head. "I wasn't hit. A few close shaves but no real injuries."

As she lifted Chloe away from the wall the red smear she left behind made Maria's heart skip a beat. "This is the last time I'm listening to you when you waive medical."

::: ::: :::

Steve wouldn't leave, no matter how much she cajoled or smiled at him. He'd left her for five minutes and she'd collapsed. And even though she was trying to brush off his concern, he could see how much pain she was in.

"This is embarrassing," she groaned. "The mother of all period's catches me off guard and everyone's acting like I'm dying." She bit her lip to stifle a whimper as another monster cramp ripped through her. Her periods never gave her this much grief. It's like all this time she'd been without one, the pain had been building and now it was hitting her times 100.

Jemma Simmons, bless her, was being wonderfully patient with her snippy-ness and general uncooperative behavior. All Chloe wanted to do was curl up with a hot water bottle, bury herself in a quilt and wish the nasty woman's business to pass quickly.

"I suspect that it's your return to a healthy weight and recent fluctuations in your hormone production might have triggered your cycle to resume production," she said _recent_ with a shy glance in Steve's direction and then cleared her throat and continued on in a professional, confident tone, "Prior to your rescue, your body had been a state of suspended animation, and before that you said you couldn't recall when you had your last period, it stands to reason it's taken a little while for things to get back to normal."

"Recent hormonal changes?" Steve mused quietly, his brows drawing together. He didn't miss the doctor's look that somehow implied his involvement.

"Her delicate way of saying lots of orgasms." As she predicted, Steve turned various shades of red and a half smirk with a look in his eyes that promised he'd get her back for that comment.

Steve would give anything to never have her hurting but he couldn't bring himself to be sorry for his amorous desires. He liked to consider himself good natured and self sacrificing but that was something he wasn't the least bit apologetic about. He'd just have to figure out a way to make it up to her. His mother had always liked hot chocolate, warm cheese buns and Hershey chocolate kisses. Her one guilty splurge for herself when money had been tight. Chloe's one vice was coffee, but chocolate had been a staple in their cupboards too. He made a note to go out and buy a bag of of the chocolates and visit the cafe she had liked to visit in Brooklyn to pick her up something to drink now.

Jemma checked a status on her tablet before she looked up at Chloe with sympathy. "As soon as the room is available, we'll get the ultrasound done and then you'll be free to go where you'll feel more comfortable."

"I just want this over so I can leave. Flying is not my thing."

Steve squeezed her hand. "Love, I'm just going to step off for a bit but I'll be back before you know it."

Chloe scowled and then pouted, tugging her hand free to fold her arms back over her stomach. "Step off? You better not be doing a Rocky the Flying Squirrel impression, mister. And why do you have to go at all?"

Steve winced and then offered her his best smile. One he'd been told was panty dropping, by Sam because of the supposed effect it had on the female population. If the way her eyes softened was any indication, it was working. "I won't be long."

::: ::: :::

The way her eyes sparkled and the surprised O she formed with her lips had been worth pursuading Tony to fly him in a Quinjet to Brooklyn and back to make a pick up.

"How could I have ever forgotten the smell of coffee?" she whispered with reverance.

Being a captive of the Soviets and then Hydra, she'd completely skipped the regular withdrawal with too many other things demanding her attention. Asgard didn't have coffee and Loki certainly wasn't going to play errand boy for anyone. Trying to adjust and reclaim their townhouse after months leaving it unoccupied while they'd been in Canada, the thought of sourcing all her old vices and visiting past haunts had been the last thing on her mind.

"Have I told you how perfect you are?"

He felt the tips of his ears turn red and he squeezed the back of his neck with a smile. "I hope it helps you feel better."

"It certainly helps," she said closing her eyes in bliss as she let the rich aroma soak her senses. The dark liquid touched her tongue and tears prickled in her eyes. "Hazelnut mocha, you remembered?" The smile that tugged her lips made her cheeks ache and she bit down on her lower lip to keep it from wobbling which it seemed determined to do at the tender look on his face.

Steve reached out and caressed her cheek, his heart racing like it always did whenever she smiled at him. "I could never forget a single thing about you, darling."

The ultrasound and blood test revealed nothing unexpected and Steve had to call on every effort and skill he'd learned from Lois at poker to keep his disappointment from showing. He had hoped by some miracle that Chloe was pregnant and was just experience a complication they'd be able to treat. After all this was the 21st century, not the 40th.

Chloe squeezed his hand and tried not to read too much into the way his feelings of loss had twinged before he shifted his mood quickly. She held his arm and hugged him closer, wishing not for the first time that reading people didn't come as easy as breathing.

::: ::: :::

**Brooklyn NYC**

The next week passed in a blur. Steve was in D.C. stuck in a seemingly endless circuit of meetings with Heads of State, CIA, FBI, NSA, WSC, UN representatives and press. The list of acronym representative bodies would give her a headache anytime she gave them more than a passing thought. How fickle people could be when an elected government was accused of corruption and willful negligence. When they were last on Earth the powers that be had wanted to imprison him. Since they had returned and Steve had stood against Kang - the world saw Cap fight, rally allies, and take a hit in defense of their country's leader and suddenly popular opinion was that he was perfect Presidential material.

Chloe found the whole thing ridiculous. Steve was too straight shooting for politics. He had natural leadership qualities in spades, like bravery, self motivation and iron grit but he was a bit of a Lone Ranger type. He was too bullheaded to play nice with others. He was a 'take-it-or-leave-it, I'll-do-things-my-way' kind of man. He didn't have time for spy games; manipulations and subtleties.

Having the New Avengers and the VSRA a.k.a Vigilante/Superhuman Registration Act special taskforce off their backs was a nice change though. She'd been extremely reluctant to return to Earth because of what she had witnessed before she had been abducted by Loki.

It was only Clark's urgent call for help in rescuing Kara and finding Wanda that decided things for her. If there was anything that she would prioritize above her own anxieties and fears it was the safety and wellbeing of the ones she cared about. Kara was Clark's family and she didn't know Wanda well, but she felt that she owed her for the way that she had fought alongside her in the Gamemaster's arena.

After rescuing Kara from Lex's lab and leveling the compound, Clark had repaid the favor by returning all their belongings from storage to their old apartment in Brooklyn. They'd had to evict a squatter and his kids before they could resettle in though. With winter in full swing, Steve had immediately put the man in contact with a family shelter and Chloe had given him some money to help out toward a bond for a more permanent place.

The first few days back had felt very strange. She couldn't sleep at night. There was so much noise. Street sweepers, dogs, cats, people who watched television all night and all day long. Cars and motorcycles that traveled up and down the street at all hours that it seemed like there was never any quiet.

She had to learn how to use modern conveniences again. Bucky thought it was funny that he had to rescue her from almost electrocuting herself at breakfast, when she was half asleep and tried to pry her toast out of the toaster with a fork. He didn't find it funny when she promptly burst into tears afterwards. He'd made up for laughing by making her coffee. Which didn't stop her mope because it was the first home brewed coffee she'd had in decades and it was made with her favorite beans and he'd done it perfectly and it was all too much, all at once and she barricaded herself the master bedroom en-suite with her coffee without another thought to her burnt breakfast.

Bucky sat on the other side of the door, threatening to call Steve after she wouldn't answer him for over an hour. She eventually told him to go away. And that he better not call Steve. Steve had more important things to deal with than her emotional flake out. Like rebuilding relations with SHIELD and the New Avengers.

He didn't leave his post like she wanted him to. But he hadn't called Steve either. At least she hadn't heard him do so, and no little tiger icon made an appearance on her phone.

The smell of musty towels and her own odor eventually drove her to get up off the floor and shower. The original motivation that had driven her back upstairs in the first place. Turning on the water, she soon found that the hot water wasn't kicking in. Determined to get bathing out of the way, she rinsed, soaped up and washed in under a minute.

Shivering, she toweled off, slathered herself in moisturizer and dressed. Her face was pale, her eyes had dark circles and her lips were more purple than pink. With a heavy sigh, she brushed her teeth and then opened the bathroom door.

Bucky fell back and looked up at her from the floor. He flashed her a small smile. "Wanna bake with me? Cookies can cure almost anything."

She knew he possibly had no idea what prompted her mood but he was doing his best to pull her out of it. It was totally sweet but had her missing Steve even more. The thought of warm chocolate chip cookies made her stomach rumble and her mouth salivate. The distraction might be good, and the thought of cookies did sound awesome.

She offered him a hand up, which he didn't need but took anyway. Chloe appreciated that he tried to keep up physical contact. Steve had mentioned to her in the dead of night while they were hiding out at Bruce's cabin, that before the War, Bucky had been a hugger. He hugged all the time. It came from having a younger sibling that looked up to you for comfort, reassurance and affection. When he'd befriended Steve it came natural to him to put his arm around the smaller guy and hug him, ruffle his hair, or even playfully push him around. Since they found him after his escape from Hydra, Bucky had never initiated friendly physical contact of any kind.

At first Chloe thought that it was perhaps because he didn't trust himself, his strength. He had the right-is-right mantra going but even with that, he didn't hug or shake hands. Over time, during their talks at the cabin she came to learn it was more to do with the fact that Hydra and purged any kind of emotion out of him. Electro therapy, sensory deprivation, drug therapy and indoctrination. He became their puppet, their instrument of war. His only identity was to obey.

Bucky was making a lot of progress in regaining most of his old psyche though. Slowly and surely he was rediscovering Bucky Barnes that had been thought lost, buried under the layers of deep trauma, blood and horrors of past deeds and experiences. It was their experience in the arena, from what Steve had shared with her, that her 'death' had brought the protective Bucky to the surface. He'd comforted Steve in their mutual grief and since then, his instinct to reach for his friends was bubbling under a thin veneer of indifference and he only need to see acceptance and warmth from them to act on that old impulse more readily.

Preparing the ingredients and setting about pre-heating the oven to bake, she learned that the shower problem wasn't an isolated incident. A trip outside to check the gas meter revealed the supply was out. Which meant the heater was blowing nothing but cold air. Pretty soon the house would be as frigid as being on their front stoop.

A call to the distribution center said that it was a grid problem for their area. With the Mayor's declaration for a state of emergency, and caution for people to remain indoors, on-call repair workers trying to restore service, they estimated down time to be four hours.

Chloe felt her stomach rumble again. Four hours in a cold house with no hot water and no stove or oven. She suddenly wished she'd let Steve install that wood heater he had wanted back when he'd first moved in.

Four hours later, with still no sure word of when the gas would be back in service, Chloe made the decision to go to a hardware store for essentials. Some cans of butane, a camp stove and some hot take out. There had to be some family-operated restaurants across town still open. A quick check online told her that the major hardware chain department stores were still open.

She got herself ready for a trek through the cold. Following their lunch of cold cut sandwiches, Bucky had stolen away to Steve's window seat and pulled up his puzzle table. While Steve loved to paint and draw, Bucky liked puzzles. Not the brain teaser kind, the 1000, 3000 jigsaw piece kind. He found the process calming. No two pieces were exactly alike and each piece had it's place. The counting, not to mention the focus he said quieted his mind and kept him grounded. She left him to his project.

The snow outside was about knee deep in places and the stole Steve had bought for her birthday years ago made its first official appearance. It had never gotten cold enough to wear it out before. She put on her waterproof snow jacket, her snow-boots and draped the stole over her hair and warped the edges around her shoulders, zipping her jacket closed over the top.

And that's when her self appointed bodyguard found her with her hand poised on the front door handle. He came into the hallway bearing a two steaming mugs. "The electricity still works and it's not soup in a cup but Sam says chocolate is good for the soul, so… Where are you going?"

Poor dear looked adorably confused, his gaze darting around wondering if he'd missed something.

"Who knows when we'll get supply back. Could be tomorrow, could be tonight. I'm not doing Cheerios or Captain Crunch for dinner, no matter how much you guys boast that you could live on the stuff. We need gas. I checked and Crown Heights is open. I can take Barclay to Franklin Ave and then it's only a short trip down the line from there. If it was nice out, I'd walk it. It's not that far."

"Report said it's at 16 out. Storm's rolling in tonight and Steve would put a fist in my face if I let you go out there alone. Probably will anyway that I let you go at all," he added under his breath.

Chloe patted his cheek with her ungloved hand. "It's cute that both of you think you can let me do anything. I've spent almost 60 years on my own. I can take care of myself, but I won't say no to company."

Bucky frowned at her and pressed a mug into her hands. "At least drink that before we freeze our asses off outside."

The trip to the hardware store went off without a hitch. It was the trip back that things got hairy. Between Franklin and Barclay, the train squealed to a rolling stop, with no platform in sight. The lights overhead flickered out and no announcement to explain the malfunction came over the PA. Bucky opened the door between carriages and made his way to the front with Chloe following behind. The cars were almost empty. It seemed they were only two of six people brave or foolish enough to gamble with the weather.

They stood at the driver's cab door and knocked. The driver didn't open the door but spoke to them through it. He told them that he couldn't get the engine restarted. There was a problem with the tracks. A safety trigger had been tripped and that meant all trains on the line stopped until maintenance could clear the issue. It could be anything from an electrical malfunction to something more serious like someone colliding with a train. He had radioed station control and they were sending out someone to investigate. They had to sit tight.

Bucky looked out the windows at the white out blanketing the city. You couldn't even make out the street below. The temperature was falling and he knew without looking at his watch that they were running short on time. The storm was probably going to hit soon and being in a three-car train on the top of some very high tracks was giving him flashbacks he could live without.

Chloe didn't have to see his necklace stone to know that he was struggling with being stranded like a sitting duck. None of the men in her life handled being idle or waiting well. She'd had years to make adjustments to her brash, take action approach. All she'd had was time, so much time. It was accept what she couldn't change or go stir crazy. She took off her glove and reached for Bucky's wrist. He always wore gloves in public to hide his metal hand so the only easy skin contact she could get was a little higher up. He stiffened when her cold fingers brushed his warm skin but relaxed marginally, even flashing her a small smile when he felt the reassuring calm she was feeding him.

"We can't stay here. It'll be a ice box before long. We're only about two stories up. I've jumped from higher before."

Chloe tightened her grip on his wrist, encircling it as best she could, pulling him back so she could whisper, "James, I don't fancy testing if I can heal broken legs before Steve comes home."

Bucky snorted. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

Chloe arched an eyebrow. "I meant me, you goose. I've seen you in action. I can heal, just been awhile since I've had to heal myself and since Thanos, I scar."

He turned to her fully and cupped her face, brushing his thumbs over her cheekbones. "I was going to ask you to take a leap of faith. Trust me to catch you?"

Chloe felt her breath catch. Of course she trusted him. But she'd seen what the street below looked like, or more importantly didn't look like. What if she gauged his position wrong?

"The train isn't going anywhere. When I say jump, you jump. I'll catch you."

Chloe could only nod wordlessly as he pushed open the doors with a self assured grin. "Anyone else want off?" he asked the other passengers. They all shook their heads vehemently, their eyes wide.

Bucky saluted her and jumped, disappearing into a passing cloud of falling snow. A faint clang and rustling that didn't sound like wind, drifted up along with an audible curse that would have had Steve blushing and glaring with a disapproving frown.

A steady whine and groan of protesting metal on metal reached her ears before she heard Bucky called out, "Ready or not you're jumping, Angel."

Chloe snapped in her chest clip to hold her backpack straps on and said a quick prayer. She jumped but not before she heard a teen behind her say, "They're nuts."

She hit the solid mass of his chest and felt his arms bracket her body in the same instance. He stumbled a step and then they were falling backward into the snow.

Bucky chuckled. "That's one way to clean off. Landed in a dumpster earlier."

Chloe rolled off him and into the inches deep snow beside him. "You're lucky it was an open dumpster. It was a crazy thing to do. You could have landed on anything. Could have been a car."

"Done that before too."

Chloe snorted and pushed herself up, struggling to get to her feet when her legs got caught in the snow. "I can feel the wind picking up. We got to move. Storm's coming."

Bucky sat up and closed his eyes feeling the air change and which direction it was coming from. He squinted focusing on the distance and grabbed for Chloe's hand, she hadn't put her glove back on. With how cold her skin was, his skin would act as a better insulator than her gloves. He tore his right glove off and covered her hand with his. The pressure system had picked up speed while they were out. The blizzard was going to hit sooner than they thought. "We're out of time, we need to find shelter."

When he was on his feet, he started jogging. They took the nearest street but it turned out to be all store fronts. They pounded on the doors but there was no answer. Chloe tugged her hand free and checked her phone for reception, maybe Maria could send a Quinjet. She hated to abuse privilege but this was about survival after making a poor decision to go outside in the first place.

No bars. She swore mentally. The snow cover must be creating too much interference. Bucky had jogged almost the length of the street and yelled back to her. "We can try to run for it?"

She didn't waste time answering. She just run in his direction. It would take fifteen minutes running to get to their street from where they were.

The wind howled and whipped up snow from the banks that had been formed when the street had been cleared earlier in the day by ploughs.

Ten minutes in and they were almost home. Her lungs were burning from the frigid air but she pushed through it. She couldn't feel her fingertips. She knew Bucky wasn't running at full pace because she could keep up and he hadn't let go of her hand.

They turned a bend and hit an ice slick. He managed to let go of her hand so he didn't drag her down with him but she hit her bottom anyway. Bucky fell forward. His hands didn't find purchase to break his fall and he went face first into a snowbank.

Chloe thought he'd been lucky. After all he had a good several inches of snow to cushion him. Her bottom and tailbone were smarting and stinging like a fresh burn from where she'd landed on the cleared path of slippery pavement. She grew concerned though when he didn't move. And her worry worsened when he didn't respond at all. "James? Buck?" She limped over and pulled at his shoulder. He was a dead weight but she managed to roll him over. His eyes were closed and his face was covered in snow but on his forehead was a large red and purple bump joined by a thin gash oozing blood that made her heart skip a beat.

Glancing around, she made a decision. She scrounged in her pack for her gun and blew the lock on the emergency back door of an apartment building and dragged Bucky inside.

::: ::: :::

Steve felt his stomach turning in so many knots that he thought he'd be sick. Chloe was stuck less than a block from home. No emergency services were available and from her account, Bucky had suffered a pretty serious blow to the head.

They were out of the storm which was now in full force. Tony had offered to fly him back but Steve didn't feel comfortable accepting any favors especially considering they were for all intents and purposes, still hiding Bucky. He'd lied about knowing Bucky's whereabouts to Director Coulson, the National Security Council and the FBI. In the end, he'd let Maria arrange transport for him.

Agent May was going to land him in the street where Chloe was. She said she'd worked with Chloe a lot in the past and owed her a favor anyway.

He found them exactly where she'd said they'd be. They were in the basement, in front of a steam boiler that ran on a propane tank. She'd made tent from sheets and blankets she had borrowed from the laundry room and cocooned herself in there with Bucky in her lap. He could tell from the moment he saw her that she was very close to healing him. The promise to not do anything until he got there was probably the only thing holding her back.

"He still hasn't come around. He could have internal bleeding or swelling but we won't know without a scan. Steve, it's either I heal him or we take him to an ER."

"And if we do that SHIELD will swoop in within a second. And the rest of the world with a vendetta not far behind." When they had returned, Phil had questioned him on why Bucky hadn't come back with them. Steve had lied and said it was because Thor required his assistance in acquiring something of value to Asgard. He had said it so plain faced that even Chloe had believed it. When Bucky had turned up with Thor to aid them in taking back the White House, Chloe had urged him not to linger around once SHIELD had shown up in force. Back with SHIELD, she hadn't wasted any time playing catch up and she had learned that nothing had changed with regards to the intelligence community and the WSC's interest in the Winter Soldier - and none of it positive.

Chloe leveled Steve with a look that told him they had no other choice. She put her hands on Bucky's head and took the wound. The glow faded, her vision blurred and brain felt like it was being squished from all sides. She promptly passed out.

Steve caught her as she swayed and went limp. Bucky stirred and quickly sat up only just correcting his movement to avoid head butting Steve at the last second. He blinked at his friend.

"Steve, I'm sorry…"

"It was an accident, Buck, but when she comes around someone's going to explain why in blue blazes you guys were out here in the first place."

"Butane?" Bucky said sheepishly. "Gas is out across town."

Steve frowned and his lips thinned. "Later. Help me get my girl home."

Bucky adjusted the stole around Chloe's head and winced at the large bump and bloody smear on her forehead. When would he stop hurting her?

Steve caught his arm as he went to pick up her backpack. "Hey, it's always her choice. This isn't on you."

"Yes, it is. I wasn't being careful. I just wanted to get us home."

"Not your fault. She'll kick your ass is she saw you beating yourself up about it."

Bucky twitched a small smile before sobering. "Doesn't sound like the storm's going anywhere soon."

"We're both equipped to handle it. We stay in the street where it's been salted the most. You really were close to home."

Home, Steve thought. With the two of them - the most important people in the world to him - it was his definition of home. The ache in his chest was gone. Sure he was upset to see her like this, but she'd bounced back from much worse. Having her in his arms, Bucky at his back, there was nothing he couldn't do. Nothing they couldn't face down. He'd been frozen for 70 years. A freak New York blizzard had nothing on the Arctic. It was time to move.

Chloe came around feeling warm and snug with a very welcome and familiar body and scent surrounding her. She did startle but smiled when she also noticed that the weight across her legs belonged to a dark head. "How is he?"

Steve kissed her temple. "Beating himself up."

She threaded her fingers in Bucky's thick, slightly wavy hair. "I think the only way the guilt will end is if he faces them."

"They'll crucify him, Baby. Stein and his like are just a few of Hydra's political and financial backers fighting for appeals, they'll use him."

"We won't let them. Before you got shot - when you stupidly turned yourself over without me - I was hitting old Soviet facilities, Leviathan sites, the beginning of the Red Room. I was gathering evidence of James' captivity and torture. He's a POW. He's been punished more than enough. Even when they clear him, he won't stop trying to make amends for his past. We can't live free until we stop hiding. It has to be his choice though. I'll never betray his trust and I know you won't either."

Steve turned her in his arms so that she was sitting across his lap. Bucky's head had fallen a little between his knees as a result but his friend kept on sleeping. The warmth of the mountain of blankets and shared body heat must have proven to be a comforting haven. Then again before the war, Bucky had been a heavy sleeper. Not even Becca jumping on him would prod him awake if he was tired enough.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to keep up with how your mind works," he said kissing her lightly. In awe of how much she'd accomplished in the time they'd been apart when the government had turned against them.

"I have a lot to live up to. I married to the man with a plan," she teased. Steve prodded her ribs for that quip and she raised an eyebrow at him. "You really want to start that?"

Steve grinned. "Maybe."

What followed was an all out tickle war that definitely woke Bucky up when he caught a foot to the side of the head when Chloe tested the limits of her flexibility, trying to get back at her man that had fingers far too nimble and dexterous to be allowed.


End file.
